OTTAWA — Education, job-training and a commitment to work with First Nations to settle land claims topped the government's budget priority list for aboriginals, which is aimed at ensuring native people — both on- and off-reserve — become full and contributing members of the Canadian economy.

The government will invest $275 million over three years in education and job training, and almost $331 million over two years to build and renovate on-reserve water systems.

Citing statistics that show Canada's youthful aboriginal population is booming, while the rest of Canadians are rapidly aging, the budget said First Nation, Inuit and Metis people will become an increasingly important source of Canada's labour force growth.

The aim of the targeted spending, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said Thursday in his budget speech, is to "unlock the potential of Canada's First Nations children."

"I'm very encouraged," said Roberta Jamieson, CEO of the Indspire, formerly National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation. She said she liked the government's emphasis on collaboration with First Nations and the apparent acknowledgment that "the prosperity of the country is inextricably tied to change for First Nations education."

"This change needs to start today," she said.

The question is whether the investment will be sufficient to raise on-reserve students to an equal footing with students off-reserve, as was promised in the "Shannen's Dream" motion passed unanimously by Parliament last month.

An "alternative budget" prepared by the Assembly of First Nations for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives suggests it won't be.

It said on-reserve education systems require $800 million per year to "slowly bridge the $3-billion gap built up since" a 1996 two per cent spending cap was put on all on-reserve spending. In education infrastructure alone, the AFN said, it will cost half a billion dollars to fix the 40 on-reserve schools in need of immediate repairs.

This year, the budget commits $45 million total for aboriginal education, which should cover early literacy programming and initiatives to strengthen students' relationships with the provincial school systems, as well as build new schools and renovate existing ones.

Missing from the government's budget is money to address what Assembly of First Nations National Chief Shawn Atleo called a "housing crisis" in more than 100 remote aboriginal communities.

However, it does re-commit funds to two initiatives that were intended to end next fiscal year. The Urban Aboriginal Strategy, in which the federal government partners with its provincial, municipal and aboriginal counterparts to improve job training and housing in urban centres, will continue with a $27-million influx over two years. As well, an initiative intended to curb family violence on reserves will get a $12-million boost in 2012-13.

In a year when departments were asked to cut between five and 10 per cent of their spending, Aboriginal Affairs, which had the fourth-largest amount on the chopping block — with a little more than $6 billion — found it was only possible to cut spending by almost three per cent, second only to Veterans Affairs, at a little more than one per cent.

Some announcements had no funding attached. The government said it would move ahead "with willing First Nations" to introduce legislation allowing private property ownership on-reserve. The move would allow First Nations to buy and sell their reserve land, which currently is held in trust by the federal government.

As per February's joint-panel on education recommendations, the government said it would introduce a national First Nations Education Act by 2014. It also committed to exploring how to ensure elementary and secondary education on-reserve gets "stable, predictable, and sustainable funding."

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